HTTYD One-Shot: Snoggletog Baking
by Jayalaw
Summary: Inspired by one of my Facebook friends making a Santa Viking Cookie. Gobber once tried to start a holiday tradition of baking with Hiccup over Snoggletog, but it didn't go well. Ten years later, Hiccup tries to insist that Odin watching doesn't scare him; Gobber knows better. Fluff


Before Stoick had apprenticed Hiccup to the smithy, Gobber often watched the tiny Viking when the chief had important business. During Snoggletog, Stoick was twice as busy because he had to make sure the preparations were in alignment. Gobber would close up shop since the dragons never raided during winter, and spend his days in the chief's household.

"I think it's time I taught you to bake, lad," Gobber told the gap-toothed five-year old. "Someday you'll have to cook for your dad, and I'm sure he'll appreciate some cookies."

"But Daddy never has time to appre-shate things," Hiccup said, plainly. "And I'm not allowed near fire."

"You are. This time," Gobber promised. "Now where do you keep the flour?"

Hiccup showed him. Gobber taught Hiccup how to mix flour, sugar and water to make a thick, doughy substance. They used tankards to cut out round shapes, and different molds to make shapes. Gobber used a flat wooden board for the dough, and baked the cookies over the fire pit. Hiccup's eyes shined as white burned into brown.

"Fun!" he said.

"Wait till they cool, Hiccup," Gobber said. "Help me mix up more things."

Hiccup enjoyed mixing. Colors blended, so that they had red, green and yellow frosting. Hiccup found that mixing red and yellow made orange, and mixing orange and green made a thick, gooey brown. When Gobber pressed his hook to the cookies and deemed them cool, he showed Hiccup how to layer on frosting with various spoons, to make shapes. Hiccup in time made shield-like cookies, and the sun. He even started painting faces, of himself, and his father. He used his fingers like a brush.

"I'll make one special for you," Gobber said. "But you can't look. Make something special for me."

Hiccup didn't look, and he painted Gobber onto a cookie. Only this Gobber had a metal-clawed hand and a grey instead of brown prosthetic.

"It's so you can grab stuff with your hook," he explained when Gobber looked. "Special."

"I'm touched." Gobber placed a large cookie in front of him. "This is Odin, who will come in a few days!"

The boy stared. It was not the Odin he had pictured. This Odin had a snow-white beard, a bone slapped against his forehead, a large eye with a black dot, orange trousers, and a skull . . . what was it?

"Cover?" he suggested.

"Codpiece, actually. Covers your skivvies," Gobber said. "The one that fills your helmet with goodies. Of course, that's if you're good. Don't poke him! He'll get angry."

Hiccup withdrew his finger. He had only been trying to straighten the skull codpiece since Gobber had painted it at an angle. This Odin didn't look like someone who would give presents even if he were good.

"You know, Odin gave up one eye for wisdom, so he could see everything," Gobber intoned. "And thus he sees every good and bad thing that you do. Like when you ran off during a raid, he saw you running to toss fire on that Nightmare. He then saw you hide your burned fingers under a blanket. He's always watching, Hiccup. _Always_."

Hiccup yelled and ran up the stairs to his room. He climbed under the covers and wouldn't come out.

"Odin can't see me, Odin can't see me," he repeated.

"Hiccup!" Gobber said. "What did I do wrong?"

Stoick would ask Gobber the same question. Months afterward Hiccup would check the reflections in the house for Odin's face. Often he looked with anticipation. He'd have nightmares about the god's eye boring into him, to see if he had been a good Viking. Sometime afterward, Stoick had him apprenticed to the smithy, to get Hiccup away from the fire pit and the cooking equipment.

Once a year, when the shields went up on the big tree and helmets hung by the fire, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third prepared himself. Normally he left with the dragons when they went to lay their eggs, but beforehand people seemed obliged to give him his gifts early. Some were more vigorous than others were.

He was packing his supplies in the smithy in the back, trying to duck his head behind the counter so as to appear busy. He saw a familiar pair of boots, though, and striped leggings. Hiccup brought himself up to full height.

"Astrid! What a surprise!" he said with a fake smile. "I take it you're trying to gift me early?"

"Of course." She set down a tankard with a metal lid in front of him. "I made it special for you. I had to, after seeing the tool belt that you gave me."

"Yaknog in a tankard!" he said. "Astrid, you shouldn't have!"

"Anything for my babe," she said with a smile. "Besides, this way you can bring the holiday cheer to the other dragons."

"They'll love it," Hiccup lied, trying to ignore the sidelong looks that Toothless was giving him. The dragon lay by the hot coals, basking in the warmth.

"You're going to miss Gobber's cooking," Astrid said. "He said that he wants to come up with something special before you leave."

"Why don't you come with me?" he asked, even knowing that he wouldn't be able to get out of chugging the Yaknog to make her happy.

"Because this is the first year Stormfly will be infertile," Astrid said, and she sobered. "Gobber checked her. She's not getting eggs this year and I think she's depressed about it."

Hiccup sobered as well. He remembered when Astrid and Stormfly had gotten the diagnosis. Even though Stormfly's babies often visited, and they grew at a rapid rate, Astrid was depressed at the thought of her dragon having no more fledglings. She liked training them to fight as a team.

"I could stay, you know," he said.

"Nah." She punched him. "You'd be going stir-crazy, and I know how you get about when Odin visits to fill your helmet."

"Come on, Astrid, I'm not five anymore," he said. "I know that Odin through his divine agents Gobber the Belch and Stoick the Vast fills the helmets. And Dad has been a bit too busy for that for the past several years; he mainly puts in the hard sweets that Trader Johann brings."

He kept his tone cheery, but inside his heart clenched. Maybe it was because Hiccup had only brought it up once the first year Stoick had completely forgotten to fill Hiccup's little Viking helmet, but something had changed when Hiccup had started working in the smithy. It was possibly that while Stoick busted Hiccup every time the little Viking got into trouble, Odin didn't. Every year, except for that one year the stocking was full, and one time Hiccup had woken up when Gobber had banged his good leg into the fire pit.

Stoick had forgotten because Hiccup had buried his Viking helmet when he had outgrown it, as an experiment. That year he had received no sweets, despite only causing one giant fire in the summer, and Stoick didn't realize for a month. Although he had apologized to Hiccup and doubled the cakes on the boy's birthday in February, an epiphany slapped Hiccup's face like a wave.

 _Odin's a bit too concerned about other things to wonder if I'm good,_ he thought. _I'm too small to worry about._

"I don't know, I heard that Gobber was cooking up a surprise for you in Odin's name," Astrid said, cheering up a bit. "He said not to visit your house until the end of the day, when it's done."

Hiccup nodded. He leaned forward to steal a kiss from Astrid quickly. She returned it, cupping his face in her hands. Then she ran off, making the Yaknog tankard rattle.

"Knowing Gobber and his view of what Odin looks like," Hiccup shuddered. "Brr. That's something I don't want to see."

Toothless snuffled by the hot coals. Hiccup went over and lay next to him.

"I'm not a Snoggletog grump, but I wonder why we say that Odin is watching us when he isn't," Hiccup said. "If he had been trying to punish me for not listening to dad, I wouldn't have gotten sweets in my old helmet."

Toothless pressed his warm snout to Hiccup's cheek. The scales gleamed in the firelight.

"Thanks bud," Hiccup murmured. "Maybe just a little nap . . ."

When Hiccup awoke; someone had covered him with a fur blanket. His neck creaked and Toothless was snoring.

"Reminds me of when you were a tyke," Gobber said from above; he was arranged shields on the wall. "You'd always be falling asleep in the oddest places."

Hiccup's eyes flickered. By the fading light, he guessed it was sunset. Gobber had lit some lanterns to add an orange glow to the smithy. The formerly hot coals had dimmed to a dull brown, and Toothless had climbed on top of it. The dragon snored and warbled.

"You know, I think you stopped asking Odin for things when you were about ten, lad," Gobber said. "That's when you started making Snoggletog gifts for your dad, like that tiny penknife."

"It was a knife and a corkscrew, for mead," Hiccup mumbled. He straightened up. "Astrid said you had been making something for me?"

"I was remembering that day when we were baking, and you got scared of the Odin cookie. You wouldn't even look at it until I bit its head off!" Gobber chuckled. "Afraid that he was watching you?"

"For a long time," Hiccup said with a smile. "Then I wasn't."

"Why not?"

"I think Odin didn't need to with my dad on the case." Hiccup yawned and stretched his peg leg. "Besides, I got this as a nifty souvenir."

"Aye, lad." Gobber placed a tray next to him. "I think I might have got you to thinking Odin only sees the bad things and judges them."

Hiccup saw the cookies. They had been decorated with more finesse this year, so that Odin looked more majestic in his orange trousers, and the skull codpiece was straighter. There were more of him, and half of the Odins were smiling.

"You know, I was also scared of how they looked," he said. "Now, it just seems silly that a cookie could do that."

"Not that scary, when you're small and unable to protect yourself," Gobber said. "I only wish I hadn't been that scary when describing how he watches you. You can poke him in the gut now, if you like."

Hiccup didn't, although he did draw lines around one icing codpiece so that it looked more like a belt buckle. Odin looked calmer, if not soothed by the gesture. Hiccup also smoothed the god's eyebrows on another cookie, to make the god look more elegant and less wild.

"I missed baking with you," he said. "And decorating. I forgot about that."

"Your dad didn't allow it. He thought a little fire could hurt." Gobber looked solemn. "But I don't think he'll mind if you help me whip up some Freyas to go with these Odins."

Hiccup considered. Toothless was still sound asleep. Gobber was looking at him with a hopeful expression.

"Why not bake here?" he asked. "A smithy is sort of like a bakery, for different things."

"Sound idea!" Gobber smiled. "Though the sweets may taste of soldered iron."

"It's fine. Can't be worse than Yaknog," Hiccup said. "Do we have flour?"

"Alas, no. It's at the house."

"I'll run and get it," Hiccup said. "And I haven't even finished your Snoggletog gift."

"Believe me," Gobber called after him, "You don't have to!"

It wasn't until Hiccup rummaged for the flour and spices in the hut cupboards that he realized what Gobber meant. When he did, he hurried back quickly, the night air blasting him in full. Although snowflakes coated his face and vest, and wouldn't come off except as a drippy mess in the smithy fire, he felt warm inside.


End file.
